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Hurricane Sandy & Marblehead (Photo credit: The Birkes)

As Hurricane Sandy made landfall in New Jersey, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued an alert about rising waters at the Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant (The Seattle PI). Alarmists may take it as reason to shut all nuclear power in America, but there's no reason to worry about the safety of nuclear power in the face of natural disasters like this. Just like the flooding last year, just like the earthquakes this year, it would be surprising if this storm causes real problems such as release of radioactivity. Oyster Creek was already in a previously scheduled shut down before the storm hit.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued the alert, the second-lowest in a four-tiered warning system, when stormwater reached a high of almost 10 feet above sea level. Nuclear power plant procedures require that the facilities shut down under certain severe weather conditions and Sandy certainly qualified as severe (BusinessInsider). Other plants shut later in the night as their local conditions became severe as well.

Conditions were still safe at and around Oyster Creek, a plant in Lacey Township, N.J., and at all other U.S. nuclear plants, said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The plant's owner, Exelon Corp., said power was also disrupted at Nine Mile Point in the station's switchyard, but backup diesel generators were providing stable power, with more than two weeks of fuel on hand. In preparation for the storm, all nuclear plants were more than fully staffed, for just such an event.

Hurricane Sandy, the biggest Atlantic Ocean tropical storm on record, made landfall Monday on the Jersey coast with an effective zone extending several hundred miles from the center (Nuclear Cafe). Devastation will result from this storm, and the effect on many people's lives will be substantial.

Although those with real ideological issues against nuclear energy may have gotten bit excited, there is nothing so far to worry about with respect to the nuclear plants. There is no special issue or peculiar risk here for the nuclear plants in the path of Hurricane Sandy. These plants can handle a hurricane, just like earthquakes. This is nothing like Fukushima, neither the power plant nor the situation.

That’s not to say Sandy is not a threat to many other systems like subways, natural gas plants and pipelines, dams, hospitals, the electric grid, and all sorts of things that could fail in a hurricane. It will leave millions without power and in dire straights (six million as of midnight). It has killed people.

But the nuke thing has nothing to do with that. Yet it is sure to get people on edge. The nuclear plants weathered this storm better than most any other infrastructure.

I also suspect that the politicization of Sandy and the Nuke to ratchet up today, given how it started yesterday even before landfall. I truly respect Amy Goodman, but I wish she had asked a real nuclear expert to talk with her on Democracy Now! yesterday, not an anti-nuke activist like Arnie Gundersen who doesn’t really know the nuclear technical stuff, but only cares about politics. He threw in the usual key words like Fukushima, spent fuel pools, outages, diesel, hydrogen explosions and the like, that have nothing to do with the issue but ratchet up the emotional response.

He even mentioned climate change, which is strange as nuclear power has been the energy source that has emitted the least CO2 into the atmosphere for all the electricity it’s produced, followed by hydro. And nuclear weathered the droughts and hot summer better than any other source, contrary to legend.

The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission outlined the preparations being taken and how closely they are monitoring the storm (NRC) especially for Calvert Cliffs in MD, Salem, Hope Creek and Oyster Creek in NJ; Peach Bottom, Three Mile Island and Susquehanna in PA, Indian Point in NY, and Millstone in CT (Nuclear Cafe). The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) has a good review of general hurricane preparedness that have been implemented at these plants. You can also track how nuclear energy plants are responding to Hurricane Sandy at NEI News Release.